An Air Force veteran has filed a federal claim after an operation at a Veterans Administration hospital in which a healthy testicle was removed instead of a potentially cancerous one.Benjamin Houghton, 47, was to have had his left testicle removed June 14 at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center because there was a chance it could harbor cancer cells. It also was atrophied and painful.But doctors mistakenly removed the right testicle, according to medical records and the claim, which seeks $200,000 for future care and unspecified damages. He still hasn't had the other testicle removed."At first I thought it was a joke," Houghton told the Los Angeles Times. "Then I was shocked. I told them, 'What do I do now?"'Houghton, his wife, Monica, and their attorney, Dr. Susan Friery, said they hoped to get the VA's attention by going public with the situation... http://www.cnn.com

Fifteen British sailors and marines held captive by Iran for nearly a fortnight arrived home today, as Tony Blair warned Tehran against what he called its continued support for terrorism. The British Airways flight from Tehran touched down at Heathrow at 12:02pm. Soon afterwards, the 14 men and one woman, now dressed in uniform rather than the Iranian-provided suits in which they boarded the plane, crossed the landing strip to a pair of Sea King helicopters waiting to transfer them to their home base in Devon. At exactly 2.30pm the helicopters landed at the Royal Marines base at Chivenor, near Barnstaple. The former captives disembarked before assembling next to the officers' mess, waving at relatives and colleagues watching from inside.After a short pause, those waiting were allowed to run and greet the group with hugs and embraces. The released personnel and their families then shared a leisurely lunch, to be followed by a debriefing and medical check up....http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2050596,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12

A La Nina weather anomaly may be forming in the equatorial Pacific, but a fog of unpredictability enshrouds when it may strike and how strong it might be, according to the Climate Prediction Center of the U.S. National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. In its monthly update issued Thursday, the center said "atmospheric and oceanic conditions are consistent with a trend towards a Pacific cold (La Nina) episode."The formation of La Nina could lead to more storms in the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30, forecasters say.The weather anomaly could occur between May and July of this year.However, the latest computer models "indicate considerable uncertainty as to when La Nina might develop and how strong it might be," according to the CPC.La Nina is less famous than El Nino, during which waters in the Pacific turn abnormally warm....http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070405/ts_nm/weather_lanina_dc

When Performance Technologies Inc. renewed its insurance policy protecting against shareholder lawsuits, the software company paid less than it did before Enron Corp.'s collapse in 2001. American International Group Inc. and another insurer cut Performance's annual premiums to $160,000, about half of their peak of $314,000 in 2003, said Dorrance Lamb, chief financial officer of the Rochester, New York-based maker of programs and switches for the telecommunications industry. Bidding was so aggressive that two smaller competitors offered the same policy for $95,000. AIG, the largest U.S. insurer of corporate boards, and rivals have cut prices as the perception of risk from scandals such as Enron fades with new accountability standards. In 2006, rates to cover directors and officers who may be sued for negligence or misleading statements fell to the lowest level in five years, according to a survey of 2,875 insurance buyers to be released next week by ...http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aduA1ZX8xiGs&refer=exclusive

A U.S. helicopter went down after coming under fire Thursday in a Sunni militant stronghold south of Baghdad. There were no deaths, but four of the nine aboard were wounded, the U.S. military said. Gunmen opened fire on the Black Hawk helicopter at about 7:30 a.m. as it flew over Latifiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad, an Iraqi army official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. Latifiyah, part of the area known as the Triangle of Death, is a stronghold of the Sunni-based insurgency, reports CBS News' Pete Gow. The U.S. military, meanwhile, has confirmed the deaths of four more soldiers in Iraq, reports Gow, while four British soldiers, along with a Kuwaiti interpreter, were killed by a roadside bomb near Basrah early Thursday morning. ...http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/05/iraq/main2650277.shtml?source=RSSattr=World_2650277